Tuesday’s Forum
Steven L. Taylor
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Tuesday, August 17, 2021
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119 comments
About Steven L. Taylor
Steven L. Taylor is a Professor of Political Science and a College of Arts and Sciences Dean. His main areas of expertise include parties, elections, and the institutional design of democracies. His most recent book is the co-authored
A Different Democracy: American Government in a 31-Country Perspective. He earned his Ph.D. from the University of Texas and his BA from the University of California, Irvine. He has been blogging since 2003 (originally at the now defunct Poliblog).
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I did not know it was possible for Alan Dershowitz to sink lower, but once again he has defeated my expectations.
I’m not talking about his recent defense of Andrew Cuomo; that’s fairly unsurprising and comes with the territory.
No, I’m referring to his appearance at Mike Lindell’s symposium for Donald Trump’s reinstatement.
He’s apparently been representing Lindell in the lawsuit against him from Dominion. He claims not to be endorsing Lindell’s opinions but simply to be defending Lindell’s First Amendment rights. At a separate event he explained that in the past he’s defended the rights of Holocaust deniers despite his having had family that died in the Holocaust.
What Dershowitz neglected to mention is that whenever he defended such people in the past, he always made it clear that he considered their views utterly deranged and abhorrent. He never appeared at a Holocaust-denial conference to tell the audience how he wanted to put aside his differences with them due to his commitment to the Constitution. He always made a point of avoiding doing anything to lend credibility to extremists whose rights he was defending, and he often criticized others for failing to heed this distinction.
Not this time. In his speech to the symposium, he didn’t utter a word refuting Lindell’s claims of voter fraud or his prediction that the Supreme Court is about to have the election declared invalid after which Biden and Harris will resign to make way for Trump. The esteemed Harvard law professor didn’t feel the need to correct them on any of that; instead, he preferred to talk about how the First Amendment is under attack from Facebook and Twitter.
What I also find interesting is that, while I don’t know if Dersh has defended someone against a defamation charge before, he has definitely sued people for defamation on multiple occasions, and in one of them he tried to get the Gov. of California to stop a book’s publication–which I’m quite certain would have been a blatant violation of the First Amendment. And I can assure you that Dersh, beyond a shadow of a doubt, knows this, just as he knows Facebook isn’t violating anyone’s First Amendment rights. He knows it, but let’s just say hanging out with the pillow guy is a pretty sure sign of someone with no shame left.
It’s about a 3 hr flight from Kabul to Doha. Having been on long haul family crowded military charters before all I can think about is the toilet situation.
Inside Reach 871, A US C-17 Packed With 640 Afghans Trying to Escape the Taliban
Oh, c’mon people! Decent leaders don’t exercise power just because they can.
Airmen with shaving waivers will have to shave every week at Moody Air Force Base
Biggest US reservoir declares historic shortage, forcing water cuts across west
I can’t wait to see the verbal gymnastics Republicans will go through as they blame Biden for this calamity because it happened on his watch.
I had both Pfizer vaccinations back in April, and on Sunday I decided to get a “booster” jab. So I made an appointment at a local drug store, for the Moderna vax, saying it was my first. No problem. Except for a sore arm, I had no side effects. I’ll get my second “booster” jab in 4 weeks.
I was tired of being the good kid who always obeys the rules while everyone else takes advantage of them. So I jumped the line to get a booster and I figured mixing vax brands may be a better way to go. Many of the other folks in line were getting their “booster” also.
The Delta variant is gaining ground in Seattle. Hospitals are starting to cancel elective surgeries for lack of staff. Just wait until the Lambda variant shows up and all hell will break loose.
BTW, I’m 62 and a retired doc with a hx Hodgkins lymphoma with splenectomy. I’ve lost 40 lbs and cured my high blood pressure with a keto diet. Doing what I can to own the conservatives.
@Scott: The Taliban gives everyone a shaving waiver.
@JDM: Yes, there’s a growing body of evidence that mixing and matching vaccines is the way to go:
Mixing Covid jabs has good immune response, study finds
Next week will be 6 months after my second Moderna shot. At 67, I think a booster may be needed. Especially since my wife is still working in that disease cauldron called elementary school.
@Scott: Oh God. It going to get worse. A military without a war to fight is usually an empty husk filled with officers who had no good options to move on to better thing.
Only a bubbling fool would issue an order that invalidated an accommodation allowed by DOD regulations. I don’t have to guess the ethnicity of the base Commander knowing that most troops with the waiver are black and brown
@Jim Brown 32: Actually has a you tube video of his first Commander’s Call in 2020.
Presented without comment.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7x-_XoGXevY&t=7s
@OzarkHillbilly:
There was a line in the article from a rancher who noted they had their “own drought data” and that it did indeed show this was the worst they’ve seen in a century. It struck me for two reasons: (1) sounded like a generic tinfoil “dO yoUR ReseaRCh” response instead of trusting obvious data from the government or other “liberal” source and (2) even their own trusted set of facts told them they’re screwed. Why wouldn’t you trust them when they tell you the water level’s too low because of the most severe drought conditions in a century? Ah, they’re trying to steal your godgiven water rights, ruin your businesses and mess with your rugged sense of Western independence. Better check ol’ Grandpappy’s logs…… wait, this says the same thing. Dang, you mean climate change might be real and actually hurting our business? You mean living in a traditionally dry and drought-prone area that never historically held up large-scale agriculture or ranching till the last century or so might not work out when the water goes?
An awful lot of that land is desert and is only inhabitable because we *made* a water source in artificial lakes and rivers. It cannot naturally hold up the population and usage it has now, let alone under climate change stress. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again – the only way we’re gonna get conservatives onboard with reversing climate change is when they realize it’s gonna ruin their pocket books and electoral college margins. If nobody can safely live in AZ or NV, they’re moving to other states diluting the power of the empty red tracts of land.
A long (Est 35 min) read on Afghanistan. A lot of historical context provided. Of immediate interest is the graphics describing the Talibans 20 year growing influence since 2001.
As the Taliban return, Afghanistan’s past threatens its future
@Scott: @Jim Brown 32:
The base commander at Moody is one Russell P. “Bones” Cook.
@KM: My first thought upon reading that the census showed Phoenix having the largest urban population gain in the country was, “For how long?” I wouldn’t be in the least surprised if they’ve hit the peak.
@OzarkHillbilly:
@KM:
I *just* said to my husband last night that I hope my parents and sister sell their properties in AZ soon, while they are still worth something. Unlikely, though. My dad is in his 80s and swears he’ll be leaving that house “feet first.”
I do think that my mother is ready to get out of AZ. It’s been year after year of oppressive heat in the summers. She would prefer a more temperate climate.
@Jen:
If it’s not too intrusive, what is the attraction of Arizona for your father?
Well New Englanders, prepare for the great return migration. With the SW lacking water and the northeast predicted to have winters like North Carolina with abundant rain fall, those pesky relatives (Jen’s parents excepted) and former neighbors maybe returning or at least their spawn.
@Sleeping Dog: My wife and I were talking about this last week. Multiple strands of our family migrated in the late 1800s and early 1900s from Canada to Ohio and Michigan to get away from the cold and/or dirt farming. We are in Texas now and without A/C it is not pleasant for a good chunk of the year. Time to migrate back north?
@Scott:
Scott, I believe you are an ER Doc and I’m sure well aware of the Boston-centric medical community, but there are also many quality facilities in more scenic, less crowded parts of the region. Come on up. You can join, what we hope to be, the semi-irregular OTB break bread and tell lies meet-ups! Covid allowing, of course.
@Sleeping Dog:
Yes, but then all those red state Trumpkins would have to live alongside blue state liberal Communists. They might be more inclined to bake to death.
Nancy Pelosi made a good point. We have to pull out the 2500 troops so we can see how bad it gets and know how many troops to send back in.
I feel the same way about this place. Sure, a time is gonna come when I should move into town for my health. Yeah, I *lived in a town once*. That’s why I moved out here.
** lived in cities too, I have no desire to die in either now.
The Taliban is allegedly “urging” women to join the government. As what? Sex toys?
And the new name of Afghanistan is the Islamic Emirate.
“I would be very careful about using our troops as nation builders…. I don’t want to try to put our troops in all places at all times. I don’t want to be the world’s policeman.” — George W. Bush, 2000
@CSK: First and foremost, I think, is that he just doesn’t want to move again in his mid-80s. They have friends there, a nice house, and he can hike and play golf multiple times a week. No snow to shovel. He doesn’t mind the heat. It’s affordable. And, he’s stubborn AF. 😉
@Sleeping Dog: No, I’m not an ER doc. That may be someone else. Just a pretty boring project manager type. Grew up on LI and lived in CT for a short time so I’m pretty familiar with NE. I’m sure things changed in 40 years since I live in CT but back then it was pretty provincial. Meaning if the family hadn’t lived there since the 1600s, you were a newcomer.
Just got a weird phone call:
Caller: “Hello Grandpa.” said a voice I have never heard, sounding kind of high, and very local.
Me: Who are you?
C: I’m your grandson. Don’t you know me?
Me: No.
C: Are you Thomas?
Me: Yes
C: CJ’s father?
Me: Yes, who the F are you?
C: I’m your grandson, R. (my eldest son is R)(this weren’t him)
Me: You’re gonna have to do better than that or I’m hanging up.
C: click.
This is obviously somebody who knows me and my sons. What their game might be, I haven’t a clue, and will be talking to my sons about this soon. Fortunately, they made the mistake of calling on my cell (surprised it rang, most times we get no signal) and they didn’t block their #.
Kevin Drum has a post up pointing out how much of a difference 24hrs can make when it comes to conditions on the ground in Afghanistan. It turns out that when the sun rose today Afghanistan does not look like that famous 2 page spread from Miracleman 15 less than a day after the admittedly chaotic events at the Kabul Airport.
Granted, the Taliban will reinstitute their draconian laws against women being able to do pretty much anything other than be barefoot and pregnant asap, but we do have a problem with the media in this country (on the left and right, yes I am going all both-siderism here, lol) that just does not know how to take a deep breath and report the news without making everything sound like the world is in the process of being torn apart because the moon has broken loose of its orbit and is about to collide with earth (the plot of many a bad Syfy channel type film, I might add, and I have seen plenty of them).
Not trying to make complete light of the actual story in Afghanistan, it is just that the media sometimes sounds as ridiculous as many of the armchair warriors who insist that if Biden had done X instead of Y all would be right with the world. It is so easy to sound like you are a strategic genius or something like that on the internet after you see a story on the news where the events did not go exactly as they should have based on the actions you had laid out in your mind on how Biden and company should have acted on.
Tucker Carlson praises the Taliban’s rejection of “American-imposed gender quotas”
I will be the first to contribute to the “F*cker Carlson Relocation to the Islamic Emirate” fund.
@Jen:
Well, it sounds as if he has a good life. I sympathize with your mother about the heat. I couldn’t stand it.
@OzarkHillbilly:
That is weird.
@OzarkHillbilly:
Didn’t Tucky just give his heart to Viktor Orban?????
I had some drone buddies come out and drone us while we were in the hayfield the other day. I love the way the video turned out!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wBGbhR6KjA8
@Kylopod: I saw Reversal of Fortune when it came out. It’s the story of Dershowitz’s successful defense of Claus von Bulow for attempted murder of his wife. It’s based very heavily on Dershowitz’s book of the same name. Which is to say he essentially wrote the movie himself. And he still came off as a huge asshat.
@JDM:
Did you create a fake identity while you were at it?
When I got my vaccinations, it was at the ballpark convention center thing, and they took my information, and now it appears in my doctor’s records which was a little surprising. And possibly a HIPAA violation (ok, probably not, I’m sure I signed something and didn’t read the fine print, or forgot I gave them my doctor’s info or my insurance or whatever)
Anyway, I suspect they would know if I went in for a third shot ahead of time.
I also eagerly await the day when Seattle is 110% vaccinated.
‘We aren’t all dumb hillbillies’: how Covid caused a rift in country music
I love these assholes who think everybody else should be a slave to their freedom.
@KM:
Sure. And the only way to get them to take COVID seriously is if their family members start dying. Oh wait…
@inhumans99: There is video of the Taliban playing with bumper cars in an amusement park that has been making the rounds.
Our media could have latched onto that as the one image of the Taliban takeover, and it likely would have been only marginally less representative of the situation for the bulk of Afghanistan than the images they did choose.
There are a lot of unknowns still
@OzarkHillbilly:
Here’s my fin. Sorry I can’t do more. Let me know when his flight leaves, eh?
@OzarkHillbilly:
The game is to tell you they’re in jail and need bail money. It’s a known scam. I got a call like that awhile back and could here the boiler room in the background. I asked the caller, a young girl, “How many grandpas are you fucking people talking to there?” She hung up. I don’t have any grandchildren.
@Jax: Did anybody get a haircut?
@inhumans99: I try to cut some slack for reporters on the ground in Afghanistan, especially those who have been there a while. It is natural to have personal relationships and go native a bit. It is also natural to lose the big picture when you’re in the weeds.
It is the talking heads in the States I have no patience with.
@sam: Yeah, that’s what others have said. This one was just a little too specifically accurate. Well, other than the whole “grandson” part. I only have granddaughters.
Normally I wouldn’t have answered when I didn’t recognize the # but I’m expecting a cal to schedule some surgery so I answered it.
The one I particularly like is “Mike”, speaking with a very heavy Indian accent, calling me from the “Medicare” center. Seems my Medicare card needs to be replaced and would I please give him my Medicare number, just to verify its really me, you know. I asked what the weather was like in Mumbai. He hung up.
@gVOR08:
That doesn’t necessarily follow; there are many examples of movies based on personal memoirs where the movie is more open about the author’s character flaws.
I will say that, of the books I have read by Dershowitz, he always came off as having a somewhat insufferable personality. But that shouldn’t necessarily be a deal-breaker. He gained much of his fame coming up with incisive legal and constitutional defenses for bad people, which is not intrinsically a dishonorable pursuit. The problem is that, as time went on and his own political views shifted to the right, he increasingly used his “principled civil libertarian” self-branding as a cynical ploy to hide behind, where he presents himself as a neutral arbiter who always just happens to land on defenses of right-wing governments, and anyone who has a problem with that is a biased lefty. Greenwald (despite a very different foreign policy vision than Dershowitz) is the same way.
@sam:
My sister got a call like that. She asked what organization the guy represented.
Click.
Did it ever occur to Trump that he’s killing off his fan base with these idiotic rallies? (Of course he has no humanitarian concerns whatsoever.) Probably not, since he’s incapable of thinking about consequences.
http://www.rawstory.com/trump-superspreader-event/
Alabama has, by the way, the lowest vax rate.
@OzarkHillbilly:
You have progeny named R? I guess Seven lost its cache years ago.
And who the eff is F?
@Jax:
WAY WAY COOL ! Love it
@CSK: @sam: @OzarkHillbilly:
I answer all spam calls…. Then ask them to hold on a moment….
Then just wait for them to hang up. I waste more of their time then they wasted of mine.
@EddieInCA:
I did that back in the landline days of yore: I’d set down the receiver and walk away from it.
@CSK:
WHAT?!?!!!
@OzarkHillbilly: I know, he got pretty close a couple times!! He’s got a little DJI FPV with the VR goggles, that thing is FAST!!!! He clocked it at 91 mph. We were trying to time it so he could fly through the baler chamber as it was kicking the bale out, but the hydraulics on the tractor aren’t fast enough to be able to stop the gate from closing on him. So we had to settle for stopping and leaving the baler open so he could fly through it, instead.
It was good entertainment, for sure. 😛
@Jax: That was pretty great.
@Steven L. Taylor:
I don’t know if you’re being ironic or sardonic, but yes. The vax rate in Alabama is slightly over 35%. This does not bode well for Alabamians.
@Jon: Most fun we’ve had in the hayfield in a while! 😉
@Gustopher:
Most states had a centralized system for tracking immunization information even before the pandemic:
Washington State Immunization Information System
@Kylopod: Dersh just stumbled across a random cow and is now milking it for all it’s worth. No mystery at all (not that I’m accusing you of being mystified).
@OzarkHillbilly:
If you believe they’re your child/grandchild, they’ll tell you that they’ve been travelling and had some misfortune befall them and need you to send them money via Western Union immediately in order for them to get home.
@CSK:
It was a “laugh lest ye cry” situation–I am, unfortunately, all too acutely aware of the state’s vax rate and its case positivity rate.
@CSK: That’s my go to question on most of these calls.
You should meet his sister P and brother Q.
@Steven L. Taylor:
I thought so.
@OzarkHillbilly:
I guess the people who write the scripts don’t provide an answer.
@Just nutha ignint cracker: I am a bit mystified. We knew Dersh went totally off the deep end a while ago, but you’d think even he’d enough sense not to go with the guy who literally predicted Trump would be reinstated as president by the Supreme Court last Friday. Even many right-wingers have been keeping their distance. It’s not just that Lindell is crazy, it’s that it’s very questionable there’s much to be gained by hitching one’s wagon to him.
@Stormy Dragon: Yeah, I’ve heard of that scam. This just surprised me with the specificity, they had all the names. I guess with a last name like mine connecting the dots might not be so hard.
The thing that held me up was the thought that maybe one of my sons had a son that we didn’t know of. That honestly was what I at first thought of, stranger things have happened. This guy never got around to asking for money. I was way past suspicion by the time he finally hung up.
@CSK: They certainly should, it’s an obvious question.
@CSK: “They might be more inclined to bake to death.”
As I tell my students occasionally, my role in the classroom today is to facilitate in meeting your goals. If your goal it to take the class again next semester, congratulations! YOU have the day off.
The same principle applies to denizens of the GQP fever swamps. There goal is baking to death/lying in a hospital bed attached to a ventilator/whatever? I support them!
@Just nutha ignint cracker: “Dersh just stumbled across a random cow and is now milking it for all it’s worth. No mystery at all (not that I’m accusing you of being mystified).”
More like a Harvard grifter found a grift.
@OzarkHillbilly:
Maybe they strike it lucky often enough not to need one. Someone once told me that a 2% return on a mailer was considered good.
@Just nutha ignint cracker:
Kaiser Health is reporting that some unvaxxed people are refusing blood transfusions from the vaxxed on the grounds that they don’t want microchips, altered DNA, or aborted fetal body parts polluting their systems.
@Kylopod: “… but you’d think even he’d enough sense not to go with the guy who literally predicted Trump would be reinstated as president by the Supreme Court last Friday. ”
1) No sense of shame or decency.
2) Harvard law professor (perhaps redundant?),
3) The lawyer never goes to jail.
4) He’s a Very Serious Person, and that status lasts longer than a title of nobility. No matter what, he’ll be a talking head and get paid well to do so.
@Jax: Wa! Reminds me of Ellensburg (where I went to grad school). The valley is smaller and narrower, though, so there aren’t the kind of vast horizon acrages plots there. Awesome video!
@Barry:
Only in the right-wing ecosphere, probably at much lower pay. His days as a pundit on places like CNN (one of the orgs he’s currently suing for defamation) are over, and he knows it. The Very Serious People no longer take him seriously.
@Steven L. Taylor:
You’re #1!
You’re #1!
You’re #1!
It’s not just the Alabama Football Program that’s #1.
@Stormy Dragon: Ah ha! That explains why the MY CHART system is asking about my vax. It’s housed at Oregon Health Science University in Portland. The systems information sharing probably doesn’t cross state lines.
@OzarkHillbilly:
I don’t mind ’em
@EddieInCA:
Even Nick Saban’s PSA last May didn’t encourage many Alabamians to get vaxxed. If Alabamians won’t listen to Saban, whom more than one fan has described as God, then they won’t listen to any mere mortal. Getting sick and possibly dying seems like an awfully high price to pay just for owning libs.
@Kylopod: I’m thinking it’s all about the Benjamins. Dersh is 82. How much longer does he need a reputation? Also, how much damage hasn’t already been done?
@CSK: Don’t you always get altered DNA from a blood transfusion? (It seems it was a plot feature on a police procedural I remember watching, I think. But it might have been a bone marrow thing, which would be different.)
@Just nutha ignint cracker:
Donor DNA stays in your system for a few days after a transfusion, but I think what these refusniks are worried about is that the mRNA in the vaccines is a sinister substance that will eventually kill you, disable you, or turn you into a Gates/Soros robot via a microchip.
@CSK: one of the things that baffles me about the whole DNA changing fears is that people do have an alternative. The J&J is a traditional vaccine. If you’re really scared about the mRNA vaccines, then go get the J&J.
@Just nutha ignint cracker: I dunno, he seems to be doing an excellent job blowing a lot of cash on frivolous lawsuits.
Many of us have a bias where we always try to find some rational explanation for these folks’ behavior, from Dersh to Rudy to Ms. Kraken, and we underestimate how much pure hubris plays a role–combined, perhaps, with declining mental faculties. Love ’em or hate ’em, Dersh used to win a lot of cases. The point when he may have first started going off the rails in terms of his legal work may have been the Finkelstein affair of the mid-2000s (linked to in my original comment). When I look back on it, the feeling I get is not so much of someone trying to protect his reputation or silence a critic–though there’s an element of both–but to retaliate against an enemy for humiliating him, and being so consumed by that goal he doesn’t know when to quit. I’ve talked a lot here about the blurry line between grift and self-delusion, and I think people like him at some point let all the praise and adulation they once received go to their head so that they began to think of themselves as invincible and became increasingly blind to their own deterioration, like an out-of-shape washed out trapeze artist who goes out onto the stage with no safety net because he thinks he doesn’t need one.
@CSK:
Just in the last week, some guy in California murdered his two children because his ex-wife got them vaccinated and he was convinced the mRNA was going to turn them into lizard people.
@Monala:
Unfortunately, the J&J vax is the one that contains the aborted fetus body parts. Of course it doesn’t, but that’s what the dimwits claim.
@Kylopod: There’s an equivalent condition which can affect ageing, retired theoretical physicists: they go off the deep end and start professing all sorts of woo-woo. There are several notorious examples that those of us in the field tell each other as warning stories, sigh.
Funnily enough this doesn’t seem to affect experimental physicists.
@Stormy Dragon:
This is incorrect. The murdered children were 2 years and 10 months old (too young for the vax), respectively, and the father thought they had inherited “serpent” DNA from their mother. I’ve seen no indication that Matthew Coleman and his wife were estranged. They were all supposed to go camping together before he decided to kill the two children.
Guess which current governor of Texas got a breakthrough COVID infection today?
@Kathy:
Can I call a friend?
@CSK:
Mike Tanier had a funny line atFootball Outsiders in his review of QBs in Week 1 of the preseason:
@Kathy: @Kylopod:
Not to justify Abbott’s obstinacy, but I wonder how many of us who’ve been fully vaxxed would also test positive and be asymptomatic?
I see that Abbott is receiving Regeneron. Would that option be available to us all?
@Kurtz:
Ah, yes. I forgot the part about how the vax can turn you into a human magnet. How remiss of me.
@CSK:
Ok, then why is the J&J vax so chunky?
@OzarkHillbilly:
Maybe they just have better information about your grandkids than you do… better start asking them for their preferred pronouns. You may have a perfectly lovely grandson that you don’t know about yet.
I think you get to throw a party then, so that would be nice. Just, no fireworks, half the PNW is on fire already.
@Kathy: He’s asymptomatic so far, vaxxed, they’re giving him regeneron, there’s little chance he’ll have any serious symptoms. And If he does have any serious problems he’ll lie about it. He’ll play it as me strong he man, me beat virus, the virus is nothing to worry about. Trump showed him the way and he will not deviate from the way, even though God just him up aside the head with a 2×4 to teach him why the vaccinated need to mask.
@Scott: @CSK:
I saw that. Would be uncharacteristic for a Base Commander to do something so blatantly stupid…now a rinky dink Squadron Commander in an Air Force back water in rural Georgia? makes sense
Scott…. actually watched a good portion. Not impressed, must be scrapping the bottom of the barrel for Command positions these days
@Gustopher:
I can’t say. I never noticed the chunkiness when the J&J was administered to me.
@gVOR08: I think the best thing he could do for his state would be to die suffering horribly. Possibly with an AbbottCam pointing to him so everyone can watch from home.
His decisions are killing people. It would be only reasonable if he were to serve as a warning to others.
@Kurtz: They’re a hoot!
@Kylopod: Giuliani could’ve used a safety net. As is he’s a splat on the circus floor.
That’s because experimental physicists have to match theory with reality where as theoretical physicists can just make it all up as they go along. 😉
@Gustopher: HA! Thanx, I can always use a good laugh. Only one is old enough to ponder those questions. Pretty sure she identifies as female tho I have no idea if she is gay/straight/Bi. Her very sweet mother is Bi.
@grumpy realist:
Roger Penrose was a visiting professor at my university while I was a student and I was so excited to go to a talk by him until he launched into his whole quantum consciousness spiel and I distinctly remember my growing sense of horror as I realized I was listening to a crazy person.
@Just nutha ignint cracker: That’s the kinda crazy thing, you can’t see the mountains at all because of the wildfire smoke! Normally, the Wyoming and Wind River ranges are visible both east and west. I think I’ve seen the Wyoming range clearly maybe 2 days since the beginning of July, they’re closer, and I haven’t seen the Wind’s from the ranch most of the summer. 😐
Today it’s so smoky it looks like we’re on a Mars mission. Everything is orange and red and you can’t see the sky or clouds at all. Shit, I can’t see town 6 miles away.
@CSK:
Good god, the sheer stupidity…honestly, it’s good that I’m not in health care.
@CSK:
@gVOR08:
I’ve no clue whether antibody infusion is indicated for vaccinated people. Surely it can’t hurt. Between the vaccine, and having the best medical treatment available, he’s not likely to get severe illness nor die.
Still, how many of us who are vaccinated also oppose masks and hold large indoor events without masks or distancing?
Damn. Damn damn damn, damn damn. You have all my sympathies. I remember all too well those Wyoming skies and their distant horizons. In fact, I dream of them still.
Honest question: if Abbott has no symptoms, why the hell are they giving him the top of the line, last-ditch effort monoclonal antibody treatment? Shouldn’t that be going to people who are, you know, almost dying??
Seriously, this is some level of bullsh!t either way. Either he’s far sicker than people are letting on, OR he’s receiving treatment that should be reserved for the sickest of the sick.
@Jen:
It’s not only an honest question, it’s my question as well. Why the Regeneron? As you say, it’s supposed to be for the really, really sick.
Oh come on. Why the Regeneron is obvious. This is AMERICA. Where healthcare is far better for the rich than us plebes.
I only wish I was being sarcastic, instead of stating a bald fact.
@CSK:
Yeah, I apparently failed in my attempt to figure out what the California guy was going on about, and thought the “my children have lizard people DNA!” thing was tied to the “mRNA vaccines are rewriting your DNA!” conspiracy theory.
@Stormy Dragon:
Coleman seems to have been convinced by QAnon that his children had serpent ancestry, and he slaughtered them so they wouldn’t grow up to become monsters.
I cannot imagine what agonies their mother must be enduring.
@Jen:
Actually the Regeneron antibodies are contraindicated for the very ill. Instead they are supposed to be given for the treatment of mild to moderate COVID-19 in people twelve years of age or older weighing at least 40 kilograms (88 lb) with positive results of direct SARS-CoV-2 viral testing and who are at high risk for progressing to severe COVID-19.
I’m sure it hasn’t been trialed on breakthrough infections.
@CSK: Kathy is correct (FDA link here).
The reason that we associate it with severe infection is that because the treatment was so experimental it was used on TFG when he was very sick.
Actual use is for mild- to moderate cases of covid in people at *high risk for developing severe covid.*
Which again raises the question as to why someone who has been fully vaccinated received it, leading us to…@Just Another Ex-Republican: ‘s excellent (and likely) point.
Yes, I know Abbott is in a wheelchair, which possibly increases his risk.
@Kathy: @Jen:
Thanks.
@Gustopher: I had signed up online with my real name, but checked the box saying it was my first vaccine. No fake identity. They needed my driver’s license, which I gave them. They asked for any health or Rx card, and I said I didn’t have any and gave them a blank stare. I have Kaiser. I signed the consent which also had me check many boxes. A few minutes later, I had my jab. They didn’t even make me hang out for 15 minutes. I’m already scheduled to have my “second” dose in 4 weeks.
If the State of Washington sends the jackbooted vaccine squad of goons after me, I’ll be a little surprised and you’ll see me on CNN or Faux News.
@CSK: “Kaiser Health is reporting that some unvaxxed people are refusing blood transfusions from the vaxxed on the grounds that they don’t want microchips, altered DNA, or aborted fetal body parts polluting their systems.”
I’ve put up with many crazy patients in nearly 30 years of practice. I used to care, but not anymore. The last few years I was just telling them “Fine. Sign here if you want a better chance of dying, heart attack, stroke, paralysis, coma…..”
@JDM:
Ii’s a total, deliberate, and willful misunderstanding of how these vaccines work, and what they do. Odd, since so many of the anti-vaxxers are Trumpkins, and Trump himself never ceases to remind us that HE gave us the vaccines. You’d think they’d be fighting to get injected. But no–they call the vaccines “the Biden poison”.
@CSK: Agree totally. I think the only carrot you could give these nincompoops is maybe a box of 9×19 (9mm Luger) ammo for each vaccine they get.
This is like the suggestion I had to get Conservatives to sign up for Obamacare – with every new policy you get a free handgun.
Fuck off, Mike Pence. That mf’er tried to get you hanged on the White House lawn, and you’re still carrying his water.
https://www.wsj.com/articles/mike-pence-biden-broke-our-deal-with-the-taliban-11629238764?mod=djemalertNEWS
@Jen: “Honest question: if Abbott has no symptoms, why the hell are they giving him the top of the line, last-ditch effort monoclonal antibody treatment? Shouldn’t that be going to people who are, you know, almost dying??”
Because he’s an important person, and we are peasants.
@Jax: I keep wondering WTF is up with Pence? Trump tried to kill him; he is considered to be a traitor by the traitors of the GOP.
But he still thinks that he can get back in.
@Barry: There’s a reason his congressional colleagues referred to him as Mike Dense.